Meet Rick Bickerstaff

We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Rick Bickerstaff. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Rick below.

Rick, we’re thrilled to have you on our platform and we think there is so much folks can learn from you and your story. Something that matters deeply to us is living a life and leading a career filled with purpose and so let’s start by chatting about how you found your purpose.
Everyone wants to find purpose, right? There is something within us that feels a need to attach significance to this brief time we get to spend on the Earth. It is part of who we are and also integral to what we do everyday; a lighthouse of sorts that guides us towards goals, fulfillment and ultimately destiny.

I believe we are created beings and so to find our purpose, we need to go to the Creator. As a Christian, this started for me with following Jesus and his teachings, which I believe are essential to knowing God and therefore finding purpose. If God made me with intention, as the Bible teaches (Ephesians 2:10), then I can trust that knowing Him better is integral to knowing why I am here and what I am made to do.

I read today that Identity (who I am) prefaces Purpose (why I am here), and that to get those backwards can actually be quite destructive (this is from King Me: Loving and Leading in a Wounding World, by Michael Thompson). Thompson goes on to say that “a man who gets worth from what he does rather than bringing his worth to what he does” will be harmful and dangerous. I think there is quite a bit of wisdom in this. I can say that for years I derived quite a bit of my self-worth from what I produced as a creative, and even led others to do the same. Being creative was my purpose and creative pursuits were my savior, so to speak. I even taught others that if you were feeling empty or aimless in life, that pursuing your passions was the key to overcoming that. Culturally, this is widespread and probably contributed to my buying into this philosophy.

But after a lot of years of putting just about all of my efforts into creative pursuits (which at the time had been writing and filmmaking), things began to unravel, which I believe was God stripping away much of what I was pursuing in order to rebuild something better. I had been working at NBCUniversal in entertainment while writing screenplays, blogs and shooting videos on the side; just looking for my niche in the industry, really. Then, I remember driving on the I-10 to I-405 interchange in Los Angeles after work one day and hearing an almost audible voice: let go of writing and I’ll show you who you really are. I immediately rejected the thought — even though it sure felt like it was from God — having found a massive amount of my identity as a writer.

Over the next several years, however, that identity as a writer and filmmaker was slowly whittled down. I became a stay-at-home Dad and I realized I enjoyed being home with my kids way more than I had ever enjoyed my time working in entertainment. We moved from LA back to my hometown of Charleston, South Carolina, which felt like giving up on any dreams of filmmaking (ironically, I got my first paid screenwriting gig after we moved to the East Coast). Still needing to pursue something, I segued into becoming a youth pastor, but when even that didn’t work out I felt aimless, purposeless.

At my lowest point I had something of a choice: double down on creativity and “make it work,” or let go, as God had told me years prior on that routine drive home. I can’t say this was made in a moment, but was gradual. Still, I think the reprioritization of my life was happening in an upward climb.

Since that low point, I have learned that knowing God and being known by Him is the foundation that we must build upon before pursuing anything else. As you can see, relationship with the Creator was key in this whole journey, and continues to be. To boil it down, it’s all about love really. The Bible says in 1 John 4:7-8, “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.” I think we would all agree that love is really the cornerstone of life, and that even art and creative pursuits usually finds its through-line in love. If God is love and loves us, as I believe is true, then that must be the basis of our existence, and the source from which we can then pursue passions and, ultimately, find purpose. So the short answer (to this long story) is that, to find purpose, we must first let God love us and learn to love Him back, and in that relationship we will discover the details of what else we are meant to do here.

Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
A hopeless creative, I have spent that last fifteen years expressing myself through writing, music and filmmaking. Currently, my main project is called Yonder Breaks, which is beachy folk music that tends to be about family, faith and a thoughtful introspection on life and society (think if Jack Johnson had more of a country flair). I also produce songs under my music production/licensing company, Rootster Recordings, which involves a wider variety of genres, including singer-songwriter, alternative, pop, funk, rock, punk, reggae and electronic music. You can find my library at: http://www.yonderbreaks.com/p/music2.html

I’ve also been writing since college, and even though music is my main focus, I still love telling stories through written form. I have had several indie feature films produced and have written for TheDrillMag.com and StoreYourBoard.com, in addition to my own blog at YonderBreaks.com. My first book is set to be released this year by High Dive Publishing. It is called All Roads Lead to Dockweiler, and is made up of anecdotal stories, practical surfing advice and spiritual/life lessons I learned during my first seven years in Los Angeles, when I fell in love with surfing. What is especially exciting about this project is that I also wrote an album that goes along with the book, the lyrics of which are printed along with the chapters that relate to them. I am also writing a comedy novella that I will likely self-publish next year.

In addition to all this fun, I am a sponsored skateboarder by Intrusive Skateboards and Soul Performance Skate Shop in Gardena, CA. I have loved skating since about age 13, and never stopped doing it, even into my middle age. As I started having children I would take them to skate spots and parks with me, which resulted in a Skater Dad video series, which you can find on my YouTube page (https://www.youtube.com/@surfyonderbreaks). With my background in filmmaking, I tend to incorporate video into most of what I do, so you’ll find lots of music content on there as well.

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
When I graduated high school I asked my dad if he could give me one piece of advice for moving forward into my next arena of life. He said, “balance.” After navigating several more life stages since then, I can say that he was right — if you can find balance in life, you can achieve quite a bit without sacrificing too much of who you are or what is important. I can’t say I have always achieved this perfectly, but it has been a nice guiding principal, and something I highly encourage others to consider.

Next, I would say that listening to others is so, so important, but is also quite neglected in our current society. The pandemic really took a toll on everyone, but it seems to have pushed most people towards isolation. We got used to ordering food and groceries in, working from home, watching movies (even new ones) on streaming. Even when we do leave the house, usually we have ear pods in to listen to the music we want or a podcast we enjoy, putting up a barrier between us and the world around us. We can really move throughout our days with almost no interaction with others, but research shows this is massively detrimental to our health, longevity and happiness. And so I’d say that we really need to work to develop relationships with others, which starts with listening. I tell my kids (and my dad told me this also, when I was younger) that asking good questions is the key to having a successful conversation, as well as actively listening to their answers. I’m middle-aged now and I am astonished at how many people I interact that don’t know how to ask questions; so I believe that if my kids can get this concept, they will be more likable, sought out by others, better connected and likely, happier.

As I wrote in the first question, I’m a big faith guy. I think that, even if you don’t believe in God or want to, at the very least seeking this higher power out, or at least addressing that facet of the human experience, is crucial to life. It is a pursuit that should not be neglected, which is something I would encourage everyone in, whether or not you end up where I did or think like I do. If God is real, and if He loves us (which I think He does), then it is just too important to ignore.

We’ve all got limited resources, time, energy, focus etc – so if you had to choose between going all in on your strengths or working on areas where you aren’t as strong, what would you choose?
This is a great question! My dad really modeled being a “jack-of-all-trades, master of none,” which to me seems like a good, well-rounded approach to living your life. As a result, I ended up being interested in a ton of different things, and tried my hand at whatever I felt like doing. This was one reason filmmaking was so attractive to me: writing, story telling, visual arts, photography, music, editing, graphics, animation, acting, stunts, performance — so many things go into it and I loved that. But as I got deeper into the industry I found that my friends that were doing well had picked one thing and focused on it, enabling them to better master the skill, which made them more marketable. I, on the other hand, kept trying lots of different things. I was pretty good at camerawork, but loved writing. I have edited tons of projects, but also loved composing music. This wasn’t intentional, but just something I did naturally. So it was somewhat of a rude awakening when a friend of mine who I was trying to work with told me that, though I had some skills in many different areas, he would rather hire someone that was really good at the one thing he needed rather than sort-of good at lots of things.

As I transitioned to music, however, I am finding that the jack-of-all-trades approach seems to be more valuable than in film. If a songwriter and guitar player show up to record, I can easily lay down some percussion or bass guitar afterwards, because I am well-versed in both. After the session, if I feel the need for background vocals but the singer isn’t around to record, I can easily track my own and blend it in, filling out the song. Now this may only be true at the independent level, as I’m sure if John Legend is recording a song, he’ll just hire the best in the business at whatever instrument he needs. But for where I am at now, and even looking at my friends who are farther ahead of me in the music business, it seems to be valuable to have a well-rounded skillset. Furthermore, being able to shoot and edit video has also been very useful, and I’ve been lucky enough to shoot music videos for some really talented artists that I’ve also been able to work with on the music side, in addition to shooting my own content for the music I produce.

So I guess the answer to the question is, it depends on what industry you are in and what you are aiming to do. I like being a well-rounded person with a wide skillset, but that might not be valuable in every arena.

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Image Credits
Mondo Scott, Katie Bickerstaff, Kimberly Krauk, Rick Bickerstaff

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